The Week That Was

Last week’s long Memorial Day weekend of fun in the sun should mean there’s plenty of reading to catch up on. Here were the top five stories on Talentmgt.com for the week of May 28.

1. Don’t Let Employees Reach Their Boiling Point: When tensions mount in the workplace, incivility can take a toll on engagement and performance. Use these tips to defuse such situations, lest things get out of hand, writes Talent Management editor Mohini Kundu.

4. Tips to Ensure Wellness Boosts Productivity: Employee wellness can have a positive effect on worker confidence and productivity while reducing stress levels — results that could be good for your bottom line. Here’s how, writes Glenn Riseley.

5. Don’t Throw Your Employees Into the Deep End: Stretch assignments can allow high potentials to get ready for the next step in their careers, but organizations must provide instruction and support, writes Kevin D. Wilde, vice president and chief learning officer at General Mills and author of Dancing with the Talent Stars.

In Other News

Planned layoffs jumped by 53 percent in May from April in the United States, according to a report by consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, with Hewlett-Packard’s recent 27,000 cuts propelling the computer industry to the top spot among the biggest job cutters this year.

Employers announced 61,887 job cuts this month, an eight-month high, from 40,559 in April, the report said. Job cuts were up 66.7 percent from May 2011, when 37,135 reductions were announced.

Employers have announced a total of 245,540 layoffs so far this year, up 20.1 percent from the same period in 2011.

The computer industry total was more than five times greater than the second-ranked transportation industry, which announced 5,419 job cuts for the month, the report said.

More Firms Hiring From Within

An article from The Wall Street Journal earlier this week said firms are ramping up internal hiring efforts and investing in new career sites to boost intra-office movement in an effort to cut recruiting costs and retain high performers.

Promoting from within can “deliver more benefits for companies than hiring outside talent, a growing body of research suggests.”